Monday, November 30, 2009

on the front porch

not too long ago, beatrix noticed the cool, colorful leaves on this tree across the street from us.


when she snuck outside to get a closer look, i shut the door behind her.*



hey, bebe...



"what's up? oh, very funny, daddy."



"ha ha ha. now let me in."



"seriously."



i wasn't about to let her in. kids need to be taught a lesson. i sent mommy over to taunt her from our side of the glass.



"knock, knock! oh, mommy! thank goodness! let me in, will you?"



"et tu, mommy? i can't believe this."



"even my choobs are in shock."



"whelp, at least you'll still talk to me through the glass..."



"what? where are you going?"



"alright, this isn't funny anymore! you guys can let me in now!"



"guys? c'mon, you guys! i can see you moving around in there! hello?"




*don't get hysterical. no choobs were harmed in the making of this post. it's all smoke and mirrors, folks. now move along. nothing to see here...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

TRAIINNNNSSSS!!!

one crisp fall afternoon, we donned our vests (well, she did, anyway) and headed out to the train hunting ground...


it's important to wear your orange vest so that other train hunters won't mistake you for a train. although, now that i think about it, we were hunting along the orange line, so maybe that wasn't the best choice, in retrospect. however, bebe was never boarded or cursed at for being late, so it's safe to assume that no one mistook her for the T.




with all of the attention on her vest, let's just take a moment to focus on her lower half. jeeze louise, kid.



while waiting patiently for our first train of the day, we found one lone puddle to splash in.





no train.




TRAAAIIIINNNNNNN!!!!!

TRAAAIIIINNNNNNN!!!!!



no train.



lookit this kid!



seriously. look at her.



no, really.



it was a weekend so the trains were few and far between.



after we splashed the hell out of that one puddle, we needed something else to pass the in-between times.



how about we look for fat, juicy slugs in the wet leaves? yeah!



*SQUASH*



holy moly! is that... could it be? i think...



YES! BUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!



"bus. i could just reach out and touch it. right there. wow."



"test the addiction. turn your back on the bus. you don't need the bus. you don't even care about the bus. just. walk. away."



*sniff* "bus?"



TRAAAIIIINNNNNNN!!!!!



as the day grew warmer. we ventured further into the bush. well, the bushes, actually.




in an alarming turn of events, beatrix has entered into her 'climbing' phase. we were thanking our lucky stars that she was putting this off, but now we're cursing under our breath at all of the scalable surfaces in our home. she has taken to it with reckless abandon and, i might add, quite a degree of professionalism. she even has her own rosin bag. truth be told, it's equal parts dread and excitement.



we've been saying for a little while that she's just not a baby anymore, she's a kid. well, it's pretty awesome to watch this little person grab hold of her high chair and begin to pull herself up. she finds foot holds, adjusts her grip, pauses to panic... i loved to climb as a kid, whether it was trees, rocks, or even the sides of buildings. i'm glad to see bebe taking it up with such enthusiasm, and it's fun watching her learn the most important climbing rule: it's not the getting up that's the hardest part- it's the getting down that's the challenge. lucky for her, we still respond to her calls for "hepp! hepp!"

i decided it was time to take the train thing to the next level. sure, it was fun watching from the high ground, behind a fence. but with daddy's pass, we could down onto the platform and watch the trains come and go... for hours.



"soooo..."



"yeah..."


"um...?"


wait! i think i hear something!


get ready...


YESSSS! finally. okay, so the platform was basically a bust. we waited and waited, and bebe lost her patience, just like her mother. where was i? anyway, after the train came and went, we booked it home for lunch.


represent.


across the street we saw this guy- he had teeth like bebe!

Monday, November 23, 2009

steve and jodie

on the same day that uncle seth visited (yes, i'm still that far behind...), we also got to hang out with our friends steve and jodie!
they met up with us on the street as bebe buzzed along the sidewalk.

beebs loved having another kid around to play with! they tossed the ball...


and read lots of books!


bebe is often gone on book tours. she picks one book and then takes it around to everyone.



she likes to hear each person's interpretation of the material before forming her own opinion.

"now, here you believe that the pink elephant represents your mother's wayward tendencies, while the yellow zebra acts as your own reconciliation of those tendencies in a cleansing and forward-moving manner- am i hearing you right? very interesting. that's not the way steve saw it at all..."


after dinner bebe stripped down to the choobs and searched for babies in one of her "baby" magazines.

"these kids are a little too happy for my tastes."


"where are the tantrums?"


"the dirty diapers?"


"day long crying jags from teething, skinned knees, broken toys..."


"i don't even see a bad haircut anywhere! is all of this some kind of elaborate put-on to persuade people into thinking they need services and products that taken out of context would seem absurd, useless, and even wasteful? what the jeebus is going on!?!"

that's pretty much it, bebe. nail on the head.

"oh. alright then."


after all that, it was time for some jammies and something a little more transparent to read.


bebe tends to be shy and stand-offish at first, but it's amazing how at ease she becomes around people when she begins to sense how close they are to mommy and daddy.


in a room full of acquaintances or strangers even, she sticks close and stays pretty quiet. but when she's around family it doesn't take long for her to revert to her loud and entertaining self.


by the end of the evening, everybody was wiped out.


see?

big thanks to steve and jodie for stopping in to hang out with us, listening to us bemoan the less fun aspects of our lives, and especially for bringing along an extra ticket to the celtics game! Thanks Guys!